


Affable Stoner Jonathan Harker

by RobberBaroness



Category: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, not entirely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 12:07:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10616589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Some time ago I commented that Keanu Reeves’ Jonathan Harker seemed perpetually stoned, and someone responded that, given the medicine of the time, that was entirely possible.  So here is this story.





	

After the accident, Jonathan feared he would never have use of his left leg again. He had panicked too soon, it turned out- the feeling and the use came back, but at the price of great pain whenever he put pressure on the limb. Mina wept to see him suffer, and because he did not want to see her weep at least as much as for his own sake, he sought out treatment from the best doctors he could find. Laudanum was out of the question (one simply didn’t drink at work) as was morphine (Jonathan had a terrible fear of anything puncturing his skin), but at last an American doctor offered him a solution.

“They used this stuff in the War Between the States”, Dr. Morris told him. “Before my time, of course, but if it’ll do for wounded soldiers, it’ll do for you. And they make it in chocolate bonbon form, so you won’t even have an aftertaste.”

The doctor was right- the bonbons worked wondrously for Jonathan, at least as far as the pain was concerned. When it came to allaying Mina’s anxieties, at least she no longer wept, though she did still seem worried.

“Are you alright, my love?” she asked him. “You seem preoccupied.”

“What?” he asked, not entirely sure what that last word she’d said was.

“I said, you seem preoccupied. Are you thinking of something?”

“No,” Jonathan said with partial honesty. (He had been thinking of something, but could no longer remember what it had been.) “I apologize. It may be the medicine.”

And so she extracted from him a promise not to partake of the bonbons at work, where he would have to interact with Mr. Hawkins. It was a promise he entirely intended to keep.

***

Mr. Hawkins was telling him about a new job…somewhere. He would have to travel, was what he was getting from this. And then Mr. Hawkins had stopped talking, and Jonathan had the horrible realization that he was expected to respond.

“I would be honored to accept this position,” he said. It felt like there was a gap of a full minute between each word, and Jonathan prayed that his sense of time was being distorted. It was imperative that his employer not sense any weakness in him, or know that he had partaken of strong medicine before drawing up legal contracts.

“Excellent, my boy! I knew I could count on you! So, what do you know about the land of thieves and ghosts?”

“Yes,” Jonathan responded. It seemed like the right answer.

***

Dr. Morris gave Jonathan a good supply of the hashish bonbons before he left for (what turned out to be) Transylvania, and as the pain had been going down anyway- it was almost entirely gone by now- he swore to himself that he would not use them unless absolutely necessary. But aside from pain relief, they had been providing an alleviation of his anxieties, and the long, jolty ride on a carriage driven by a suspicious character through a wolf-filled mountainside called for something to calm his nerves.

It was a testament to Jonathan’s strength of character that when he got off the carriage and finally met his host, he did not immediately demand to know what was wrong with the man’s hair. He was thinking it. In fact, he could not listen to a single word the man was saying to him because in his mind, every sentence had turned to “Look at my terrible hair.”

He was going to have to abstain while in this castle, it appeared. The hair probably wasn’t that bad, when seen with a clear mind. Under the influence of hashish, alas, it became a terrible monster, reaching out to grab at him with shadowy strands, attempting to pull him into the greater part and turn his body into yet more volume for the great and unknowable coif.

“Are you tired, my English friend?” asked Count something (Jonathan had temporarily forgotten the name.)

His client could not know he was being so unprofessional. It would be a terrible disgrace. It was a miracle that Jonathan still had enough control over his head to nod.

***

The she-monsters came upon him in the night, just when Jonathan had begun to think his mind was clearing. Hashish bonbons had never yet caused him to see things that were not there, and he did not think such a thing was possible. It turned out both of these assumptions were wrong.

Just what happened next was not entirely clear, but it appeared that Count something had given him to these creatures to feast upon, and a great panic swept Jonathan as it never had before. There was fear and then there was this, the knowledge that everyone in the world, from these monsters to the people back in London, hated him and desired his death.

This panic was so great that he did not even notice the teeth puncturing his flesh. He did, however, notice when the women ceased their feeding, sluggish, and began to sprawl on the ground.

Jonathan vaguely recalled the word “tolerance”, but was not sure how it applied to this situation. It was something he contemplated as he climbed out the window and down the castle walls. Castle-climbing seemed like a very good idea at the moment.


End file.
